dots and spots 2013 Review of the Year

Each year I like to take a moment to look back through my blog and this year my Instagram feed, at the good and the bad bits of the year gone by. It's been an eventful one personally, which I will share with you next but here is dots and spots year!

JANUARY

January was busy - many new products were introduced and were well received

 at Top Drawer, Earls Court London.

FEBRUARY

February saw us working hard over at dots and spots HQ, to fulfil orders.

 MARCH

 In March, we were busy designing again in preparation for our next Trade show in May.

APRIL

April was the perfect time to photograph our Christmas range!

 MAY

 In May, we exhibited at Pulse, London for the first time.

We had our biggest stand to date but due to personal circumstances, realised this may well be our last trade show for a while.

JUNE

In June dots and spots celebrated it's 5th Birthday.

I know, where have the past 5 years gone?

My studio at home had a little spring clean and makeover too.

JULY

July was glorious and I must confess, I enjoyed the perks of being my own boss to have sneaky lunches in the garden and maybe one or two extra long coffee breaks.

 AUGUST

 August was back to the grindstone, prepping for Christmas.

SEPTEMBER

In September we introduced our new phone covers, something I've wanted to do for a while.

It was also the month to get as much Christmas prep done as possible.

 OCTOBER

 October was a great month. My paper was used throughout the Christmas catalogue and website campaign for The Great Little Trading Company. It was also used by Agent Provocateur in their Christmas Window displays and Harrods not only became a stockist but if you had anything wrapped in-store this Christmas, it was with my paper!! Pretty chuffed to say the least.

NOVEMBER

November was head down, picking and packing orders and lots of them. I'm always very grateful and thankful to those of you, who choose to buy from dots and spots at any time of the year.

 DECEMBER

And finally December. Orders continued to 'ping' in, today alone I have packed 70+ orders. It's really lovely to think Christmas cards designed by me will be displayed in people's homes, presents will have been wrapped in my paper and one or two dots and spots gifts will have been given.

2014

2014 will see dots and spots take a slightly more conservative path. Jeff's redundancy earlier this year was a huge shock and although we are in a good place now, we had had to make decisions early on about the best way forward. As a result, we won't be exhibiting at any trade shows in 2014 and there won't be a glossy new catalogue coming out. We had to plan to be cautious as we had no idea what was around the corner, we've now turned the corner and the future is looking good but 2014 will be a year of taking stock I feel.